Dan Waters
dwaters at usinternet.com
Mon Jun 29 09:13:21 CDT 2009
Hi Shamil - I agree with you on MS business model. I think they've realized that to plan for many years ahead to maintain two separate, but not that different (VB.Net vs. VBA), programming methodologies isn't in their long-term business interest. Everyone should remember that MS has discontinued issuing new licenses for VBA. MS is a profit-seeking company, so they will change as needed to get the most they can. I think the reason we get upset with them is that they are the only choice we have, so we believe that we are entitled to have a say, like we do with the government. If MS was a smaller company, we'd just say, "That's business!" Dan -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil Salakhetdinov Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 4:25 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] Converting Customers to VB.Net (was: Poll on Access2007) <<< ... .net turned out not to be all that hard to learn even for an old codger like me ... >>> Hi William, Maybe that was/is a Microsoft's "secret" plan? I mean to gradually "replace" MS Access RAD tools with .NET Framework and VS (VB.NET/C#) with the latter being not that hard to learn, and with the former having rather expensive upgrade costs? :) MS business model is definitely very strong (http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/ ) - they (MS) are rarely doing things, which do not pay back manifold - if they (MS) decide they can ignore opinions and customers of "old codgers" who do not want to switch to MS modern development tools why they (MS) should care and risk investing in technologies, which will not bring them good profits? That sound cynical, yes, but that's how things are looking from here. And again they (MS) do help advanced VBA developers to switch to use the modern development tools by making those tools much easier to do the software development than MS Access VBA even did... I'm not defending MS - "don't kill me please" :) - I'm just trying to be realistic as MS is I suppose - if they wouldn't be realistic (and cynical?) they would have got already out of business as many other software companies did... -- Shamil -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of William Hindman Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 12:23 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] Converting Customers to VB.Net (was: Poll on Access2007) Dan ...everyone is different ...look at the monster machines jc's clients pay him to play with :) ...my road to VS was through the web ...a major client wanted to convert his website from static html to a data driven one using the data in his Access app ...I wanted no part of web work being perfectly happy working with Access, so I recruited another AccessD'r I knew did web work to do it ...but then the client's ISP got real picky about some dlls that he wanted to use and the client got antsy about turning his data over to a third party ...so I wound up doing it myself ...never again. ...I bought a 3rd party tool that was supposed to be the end all in Asp development ...big mistake ...I got the site running but just barely ...so in desperation I turned to the new VS5 Express tool that MS had just released ...it was free after all ...and I've never looked back ...the VS Web Developer Express Edition was a joy to use and .net turned out not to be all that hard to learn even for an old codger like me ...and the client was happy. ...as for Access app conversion to VS, you have to understand that I'm on retainer with most of my clients and pretty free to experiment ...so when a client's office manager choked on the Office 2007 upgrade changes I started moving his apps ...still on A2k3 with a lot of his stuff but the new stuff in VS has him smiling (and his office manager) ...then another client wanted a major upgrade and I sold him on VS8 vs A2K7 and so far so good ...the majority of my work is still in A2k3 but now I can demo apps in both and the sell on VS8 vs A2k7 is pretty easy ...I focus on the roi in VS and SQL Server Express vs the costs of upgrading to 2007 ...a ten employee office upgrading to O2007 is looking at a lot of money invested in training and conversion costs (jc isn't exaggerating the screen real estate problems and training issues at all) ...and in my case, it doesn't cost them a great deal more to go the VS route and they end up with a lot more flexibility ...things they just could not do with Access and Office are now just a matter of how badly do they want it. ...I'm a long way from being proficient in VS8 Pro or SQL Server but its like back in the days with Access 2 ...you look, you ask, you try and eventually something works ...and every so often the light bulb gets a dim glow :) ...hth William <<< snip >>> __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4194 (20090628) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.esetnod32.ru -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com